Another European anthology film, three sort of based on Edgar Allen Poe stories sexed up for film audiences and filmed by three major European directors.
Metzengerstein directed by Roger Vadim, features his then wife Jane Fonda in her 60's Barbie doll persona. Vadim dresses her up in a lot of questionable medieval costumes for the apparently sole purpose of showing film audiences what a hot piece she is. In other words, this is a typical Vadim film.
The story has something to do with Fonda falling in love with a horse who is the reincarnated spirit of her cousin ( played by her brother Peter Fonda). She gallops around like a mad woman bare back, (on the horse, not the cousin). Pretty unsubtle eroticism and pretty stupid.
William Wilson, directed by Louis Malle, stars Alain Delon as a soldier named William Wilson who is being followed by a doppelganger also named William Wilson. This segment features a phallic cigar smoking Bridget Bardot. Nothing very special here that hasn't been seen on an old Twilight Zone episode.
Toby Dammit directed by Federico Fellini, is probably the best segment although it appears to be barely based on Edgar Allen Poe. Toby Damnit is an alcoholic British actor who has traveled to Rome to film a biblical story in a western setting, sort of a spaghetti western religious epic. The producer tells Toby Damnit that the film's style will be a cross between Zinnemann and Pasolini with a touch or John Ford.
Fellini is sometimes a director who should be watched in short doses and not taken too seriously, Toby Dammit is one of his best films since it's short and actually funny.
121 minutes.
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